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Telling Florida Philanthropy’s Story With Bigger, Better Data

Florida Philanthropic Network is excited to be part of a new national strategic partnership that aims to achieve a dramatic improvement in the collection and sharing of data on philanthropy.

Last week the Foundation Center and the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers announced this new alliance. The partnership will result in the collection of more comprehensive, accurate and up-to-date data on grantmaking in our country. These data will be used in new regional research reports and new regional data visualization tools that will help us do a better job of telling the story of philanthropy in our region and help inform funding decisions and track giving trends.

The Forum is a national network of 34 geographically organized philanthropic associations, including FPN, that together have a membership of more than 5,500 organizations, making it the largest network in American philanthropy. The Foundation Center is an independent nonprofit that is known as the leading source of information about philanthropy worldwide. What’s so exciting about this partnership is that it combines the Foundation Center’s deep expertise on philanthropy data with regional associations’ deep knowledge and connections on local philanthropy.

Over the next several months, through this new initiative, FPN will begin working with our members to increase the e-reporting of grants data to the Foundation Center, and to increase the quality of these data. We’ll also unveil a new online mapping tool, accessible to our members, that will allow them to easily visualize the size, scope and impact of philanthropic investments in Florida.

What’s more, FPN will be working with our colleague regional associations to create new templates for research reports, so that information about Florida giving can be more easily and efficiently published and shared, providing our members with critical information about funding patterns in Florida and giving the broader community a more complete picture of Florida philanthropy. Through the partnership we’ll also be creating new data visualization, benchmarking and knowledge management tools that will help our members to easily examine funding trends in specific areas of interest, such as education or health, and to overlay community data with philanthropic investment data to help spot critical funding gaps, new investment opportunities, new opportunities for collaboration and much more.

Florida Philanthropic Network looks forward to working with our members and national colleagues to put this new strategic alliance into action. With better data and improved reporting and tools we hope to paint a more complete picture about philanthropy in Florida, and to make a difference in improving the effectiveness, impact and understanding of giving in the Sunshine State.